My attempt at ‘Wheel of Fortune’ using TV show with ideas as the main concept. Then, adding a sub-concept of Title with circle, rotate & cash. Then, adding a sub-concept of Country with Red, White, Blue & Star. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

Concept is a party game that is a bit like charades without the acting and players use a board with icons to convey the various concepts so the other players can guess the correct answer. Each turn, the players whose turn it is draw a card and choose which word/expression they will try to convey by placing coloured markers on the different descriptive icons on the board. Player aid sheets show all the icons with 2 or 3 things that each icon could mean (although players can use them to mean anything they want). Icons show things like colours, shapes, parts of the body, etc. and some have broader potential meaning like a figure with a walking stick can mean Old/Ancient/Past.

To convey a word/phrase, the current players place various markers on these icons. There is one green question mark marker with green cubes (which is used to describe the main concept) and 4 different colour exclamation mark markers with matching coloured cubes (which can be used to describe additional sub-concepts).

For example, to convey ‘Eiffel Tower’ a player could place the green question mark on ‘Object/Thing/Package’ and a green cube on ‘Tall/Greater/High’ to try to convey the main concept is a tall object. Then, they place a red exclamation mark on ‘Location/Country/Flag’ and red cubes on ‘Red’, ‘White’, and ‘Blue’ to convey the sub-concept is a country with a red, white and blue flag. Already the description is taking shape, although players may guess it’s The Shard in London, or the World Trade Centre in New York from the same markers. Read the rest of this entry »

Rampage is a brilliant concept for a dexterity game. It’s like a Godzilla-style movie with tall buildings to destroy and people to eat. The board is divided into several coloured areas called neighbourhoods, and the player with the most Victory Points (VPs) at game end wins.

Rampage may sound kind of normal so far for a board game but it is anything but that as the gameplay is actually based on physically destroying the city. Each turn, your monster get 2 actions. To move your monster, you flick the feet disc. To attack buildings, take your monster piece and drop it onto a building (if you’re near enough). To use your breathe attack, place your chin on your monster piece and blow. To throw a vehicle, place the vehicle piece on top of your monster and flick it. Monsters can attack anything including each other and a successful attack removes one of their teeth. After their actions, your monster eats meeple out in the open in their current neighbourhood but no more than the number of teeth they have.

Buildings consist of layers of card floors separated by meeple of random colours. You want to knock these buildings down so you can (potentially) eat the meeple but you also take any floor sections which have nothing on them as these are worth VPs too. Read the rest of this entry »

Rampage is a dexterity game of giant Godzilla-like monsters smashing their way through a city. Each player controls a monster which consists of a wooden disk for feet, with a wooden body/head section on top. The city is divided into different neighbourhoods and buildings are built out of card layers with meeple as the supports between floors.

That may sound kind of normal but the game actually based on flicking, dropping and blowing. Each turn, monsters get 2 actions. To move your monster, you flick the feet disc. To attack buildings, take your monster piece and drop it onto a building. To blow a building down, place your chin on your monster piece and blow. To throw a vehicle, place the vehicle piece on top of your monster and flick it. Players get to eat any loose meeple in their current neighbourhood. Also, monsters can attack each other too – a successful attack removes one of their teeth which reduces how many meeple a monster can eat during a turn and are worth points too.

Each monster has a special ability as well as some other powers. Each player has a monster screen behind which they hide the meeple and monster teeth they gain, but rather than simply place items here (because that would be far too normal), players push items through the mouth slot in the screen. Nice.

Rampage looks totally made a lot of fun. More information and the rules can be found on Repos’ Rampage page: bga.me/rampage